I am a local in North America

Chapter 69 What the hell! Where's the fish?!

A few minutes later, the boat tilted sharply, its bow cleaving through the dark green river water, splashing up a spray of cool water.

Su Jerry's bass fishing boat, B17, traced a beautiful arc in the river and plunged into a wider bend.

The scene before my eyes suddenly became clear.

Here, the aquatic plants are abundant, and the fallen trees and tree roots on the shore form a large and complex structure. The sunlight is cut into countless mottled shadows by the towering cypress trees and sprinkled on the dark green water.

Apart from the gentle breeze, the rustling of leaves, and the occasional cry of waterbirds, the surrounding area was almost completely quiet, yet teeming with life.

"This is it!"

Su Jierui swiftly slowed down, his gaze sweeping across the water's surface once more.

In his special field of vision, several icons of "Bigmouth Bass" were clearly floating around the edges of aquatic plants and under the shadows of driftwood. Among them, two female fish were actually 18 and 20 years old respectively, and were in excellent health!

"That's great!" Su Jierui was overjoyed.

Largemouth bass can live for 15 to 23 years in the wild, averaging around 16 years. These two large female largemouth bass are definitely the "dominant" species in this tributary.

When other small fish in the vicinity encountered them, the "icons" displaying their location retreated and fled as if they had encountered natural enemies, which also shows that these two fish were quite large and had a strong deterrent effect on other small fish.

His fishing boat had just overtaken Kells Rivera, who was anchored to observe the terrain. The hot-tempered, bald, burly man could catch up at any moment, potentially leading to another conflict between the two.

Therefore, Su Jerry didn't have time to slowly tug at each fish one by one, and had to adopt a more efficient method.

He quickly crouched down, reopened the lure box, and finally chose a "reaction lure".

This is a bright yellow popper with a concave head that can create exaggerated ripples and "plop" sounds on the water's surface.

It can stimulate the aggressive desires of underwater fish through bright colors, special sounds, and vibrations, triggering a conditioned reflex attack in largemouth bass.

Su Jierui tried it a couple of days ago and the results were excellent. Not to mention the bigmouth bass, even the blackfish that like to live at the bottom and the fierce gar couldn't resist biting the bait.

After quickly and skillfully baiting the hook again.

Su Jierui cast his hook again, turning sideways, swinging his arm, and flicking his wrist—the movements were executed in one fluid motion.

"Whoosh-"

"Pfft!!!"

The lure slices through the air, making a slight whistling sound, and lands precisely on the water's surface, creating a small splash.

Su Jerry first targeted the 20-year-old female fish. It was quite old, but not to the point that its bodily functions were rapidly declining. Since its health condition was rated as "excellent," it must be quite large.

Then he began to quickly reel in the line, the reactive lure swaying from side to side underwater, the small propeller at the tail spinning at high speed, creating faint ripples.

This time it went much more smoothly.

It must have been hungry, because almost the instant the lure entered that shadowy area, the underwater icon suddenly moved!
"call out!"

The fishing line tightened instantly, and the tip of the fishing rod plunged downwards with a force!

"You won so quickly?"

Without hesitation, Su Jierui cast his line again, feeling the fish struggle underwater. He even continued filming, laughing as he said:
"Nice size! This one should be even stronger than the first one!"

"If it weighs more than 12 pounds, then my chances of winning the biggest single-tail prize will become very high."

"I can feel this fish straining, trying to squeeze into the tree hole. Hurry up and get on, stop struggling. The production team will release you after we weigh you; they won't make you into a grilled fish..."

Skillfully control the fish and reel in the line.

He spoke lightly, but his eyes were fixed on the water, his arm muscles tense, not daring to relax for a moment.

This time, it only took a little over a minute to lift a still quite plump largemouth bass out of the water, its huge mouth opening and closing.

Su Jerry quickly unhooked the hook, not even having time to admire it properly, and put it directly into the live water tank to keep company with the giant creature that weighed more than 11 pounds.

With two thuds, the two "roommates" each occupied a corner. He roughly gestured with his hands and felt that the two were about the same size, wondering if they were over the 12-pound threshold.

The noise from fishing startled an 18-year-old female bass not far away, which had already swum dozens of meters away.

Su Jerry stopped paying attention to the area where he had just caught a fish, as if he had just casually dealt with a minor one, and drove the bass fishing boat forward another thirty or forty meters, aiming at the large bass that had been startled and was hiding deeper in the driftwood area.

Worried that his repeated successes in catching big fish might be maliciously interpreted as "cheating" by some people, he specifically explained with a smile:

"Haha, it seems my luck is still great today. Once you finish reading 'Living Alone in the Wilderness,' you'll find that I seem to have found a spell to enhance my good fortune."

"Want to learn? I can teach you for free. The specific content is to concentrate your mind and silently recite, 'All destiny is in my favor, all good fortune is rushing towards me, big fish, big fish, take the bait!'"

"Well... that's roughly the format. You can figure out and modify the specific content you need on your own."

"The second fish I just caught made quite a commotion in the water, but I feel the water temperature and structure nearby are very suitable for largemouth bass. I can try fishing for a while longer. With these two big bass, advancing to the top 47 should be no problem. I need to catch five more bass as soon as possible, then I can head back early..."

He also knew that too much success was not good either; he couldn't always catch a big fish as soon as he cast his line.

So, Su Jierui pretended to cast his line a few times in places where there were no fish, looking completely focused, but in reality, he was thinking about what to eat for dinner.

During the fishing trip, they also caught an ordinary largemouth bass, weighing only about 6 pounds, which was a much more normal size. They then released the fish back into the wild before starting to lure the 18-year-old female fish.

Do the same thing.

This time, the bites were even more ferocious!

Less than two seconds after the lure hit the water, a huge black shadow burst out from under the driftwood and swallowed it whole!
"Om-!"

The fishing reel emitted a pleasant hissing sound once again as the drag was applied, and the fishing rod instantly bent into an astonishing arc!
To the fisherman, the sound was like heavenly music!

Wow! Another big fish!

Su Jerry shouted excitedly, gripping the fishing rod tightly with both hands and leaning back to resist the strong pull: "The resources here are just too good! No wonder they chose the cold north as the location for 'Wilderness Solitude.' If it were set up around here, I feel like I could live here for a year without any problems. If I had fishing gear like this, I might even become a ball of fat in a year!"

He spoke very quickly, with obvious panting and laughter, but his mind was entirely focused on the big fish.

This largemouth bass has an extremely strong explosive power. Several times it tried to go back into the intricate driftwood obstacle area, but he used his experience and waist strength to forcefully pull it back, constantly averting the crisis.

After a struggle of three or four minutes, the underwater force gradually weakened, and when it floated horizontally on the surface of the water, Su Jierui couldn't help but raise his eyebrows and open his mouth wide.

This sea bass is huge!

It's a whole size bigger than the two we just saw, with a mouth big enough to fit a fist. It's definitely a super-sized sea bass weighing over 12 pounds!

With a strong tug, the third fish was dragged onto the boat, and the subsequent weighing confirmed Su Jerry's estimate. The electronic scale clearly showed that it weighed 12.69 pounds! Its length reached an astonishing 72 centimeters!

Just as Su Jierui was about to put the big fish into the live water tank, the familiar engine sound came from upstream again.

He turned to look at the other side, his brows slightly furrowed.

really.

Kyles Rivera's A-09 fishing boat has appeared.

He had clearly also set his sights on this river bend, but as his fishing boat slowly entered, he saw Su Jerry deliberately and provocatively displaying the enormous creature to him, excitedly shouting:

"Wow! Look at this! Thank you so much! This is the third big fish over 11.5 pounds today!"

Kyles Rivera was quite pleased with himself for catching a bass weighing around 9 pounds, but upon hearing this, his face instantly turned ashen.

Even through the sunglasses of this bald, muscular man, Su Jerry could feel the almost bursting anger emanating from him, his face filled with disbelief!

"This is impossible!"

Kells Rivera practically spat out those words through gritted teeth, each syllable like a shard of ice.

The cameraman on the A-09 fishing boat immediately switched back and forth between Sujere's fishing boat and Kelse Rivera's gloomy face.

The cameraman knew Kells Rivera, who had participated in the competition many times, but the two were not friends.

"Let's fight! Let's fight! My entire performance depends on this!"

The young white cameraman was secretly thrilled, thinking that this scene could definitely be edited into the "Top 10 Highlights" of this Florida event!
Followed by.

Su Jierui didn't stop, started the engine and drove deeper into the river bend, leaving them with a dashing silhouette.

Kelse Rivera, left behind, gritted his teeth, his fists clenched so tightly they cracked. He could almost guess what Su Jerry was planning, and his mind raced with rage:

"Damn it! This guy isn't fishing, he's clearing out the fish! He wants to catch all the big fish so I have nothing to catch!"

"asshole!"

Kells Rivera growled again.

He didn't know what had just happened, but he refused to believe it, so he steered his fishing boat to the vicinity of where Su Jerry had just caught the 20-year-old fish, and cast his line quickly as if in a fit of pique.

This bald, muscular white man was indeed very skilled; his lure landings were precise.

However, several minutes passed without any movement.

He changed the bait again and tried different techniques, from quick jerk to slow bottom drag, but only the seaweed swayed with the waves, seemingly mocking him silently.

"Damn it! Where's the fish?!"

Kells Rivera muttered irritably, beginning to question the meaning of life.

And at the same time.

On the other side of the river bend, Su Jerry's fishing rod bent down again!

Feeling the familiar pull from underwater, he easily hauled a 17-year-old female bass onto the boat; it weighed over 11 pounds.

Su Jierui's talent, when applied to fishing, is absolutely unparalleled. While other anglers are struggling like headless flies, all the big fish nearby are nowhere to hide in his eyes, which is equivalent to having a full-map perspective cheat in a game.

The live water tank already houses four large bass, especially the 12.69-pound behemoth, which swims around in the live water tank like a stabilizing force.

There are a total of 5 quotas today, and he only needs one more. Less than 3 hours have passed since the start of the competition, and most of the time has been wasted on sailing!

He stopped paying attention to Kells Rivera.

He readjusted the angle of the action camera, steered the fishing boat away from the river bend he had already cleared, and at the same time said to the camera:

"Some people think they can win by shouting loudly and recklessly navigating the boat, but fish in the water don't play that game. Talent, luck, insight, and patience are all very important. Okay, I'll catch another good big fish, then I can call it a day and go home early..."

For the next period of time, Su Jerry continued to explore downstream along the tributary, aiming to find the fifth large enough fish to further consolidate his advantage, and even directly challenge for the "largest single tail prize".

12.69 pounds is quite a lot, but it's not absolutely safe yet.

Just as obesity exists among humans, and giant basketball players like Shaquille O'Neal exist, if a fish were to have a physical abnormality that causes it to weigh far more than its peers, the extra $2000 bonus would be gone.

There are always people better than you, and fish better than you.

Su Jierui dared not be careless.

Many of the wealthy participants in the competition may not care, having already saved enough money for financial freedom; they're just here for fun.

$2000 is a lot for him; it can buy two calves, each of which will be worth around $2500 to $3000 when they grow up.

Then, the bull can breed more bulls... and so on... Over the years, that $2000 will become tens of thousands of dollars, with compound interest returns far exceeding those of Warren Buffett.

Since there was still plenty of time, and there was a chance to get some extra rewards, he naturally wanted to try and take advantage of it...

(End of this chapter)